Orcs!

Its taken me a few days after Christmas to find my painting mojo again...I've been chipping away at this group of orcs for a while and I'm finding them much more fun than painting uniforms. It's also very rewarding to get some paint on the greenstuff sculpting too.

This figure is one of the new Heavy Infantry orcs from the Oathmark range. I've added some shoulder cowls with armour etc.

A new helmet makes this old Grenadier figure unique.

One of the new Gremlin orcs gets some paint. I used some Contrast paint from GW to speed through these.

Another old Grenadier orc gets a furry cloak to keep him warm. I tried washing these figures with a weathering wash meant for tanks. European dust was washed over them to give them a dirty look.Its quite subtle but it does add a little something.

Gremlin Miniatures orc with bow.

The orc above is one I used as a test for the dust wash. I just kept adding more layers to see what the effect would look like.

Grey skin always looks good for bigger orcs. This is another plastic Oathmark Heavy Infantry orc.

A snazzy new greenstuff helmet on this old figure, This design would look good with my Fomorians too, being quite fish like.

A large crude helmet from Mordor helps to add variety to the horde.

The grubby orc from the front.

 For this cloak I tried out adding some armour to it like large rings and chainmail.

Gremlin Miniatures

Recently I managed to get my hands on some old orc sculpts from eBay. These rather crude orcs are from Gremlin Miniatures. I have a real soft spot for these old figures as I remember going to a games day and buying around twelve of these figures. I remember the owner telling me they were brand new and just released. The year was 1985 as marked on the bottom of the bases.

Unfortunately my needy cat jumped up and broke two spears off the old figures. I wasn't too worried as I planned to replace these flimsy weapons anyway. Brush bristles were called into action again and this spearman was turned into a standard bearer.

While I had the greenstuff out and warmed up, I added some details to my armoured Tommies.

I couldn't resist adding furs to some of these old figures.

Here is a shot of the figures before the cat incident.

Battered troll skin created by using a retractable pencil as a sculpting tool.

Another Tommy with some added pouches.

More troll skin, it's a nice touch to put some holes in the skin.

This figure sports my idea of combining brush bristles with plasticard for a bigger blade. He also wears a new orc helmet.

Some of old sculpts needed shields to finish them off.

To help hide the plasticard joint I used cotton covered in super glue. This will look good when painted.

 Orc leader with added troll skin and large shield.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 I've just received the best Christmas present of all this year...looks like my armies are in print. I was interviewed by James of Wargames illustrated at the 'Other Partizan' show when I helped James Morris showcase his great Midgard rules.

I wasn't sure if the interview would be of any use to the magazine as I was waffling on, but it looks like I was wrong.

 I started messing around with orcs around 11 years ago, they are the most satisfying and addictive figures to paint, not to mention the easiest. Being Christmas day now I'll have to wait a couple of days until I can buy a copy of the magazine for myself. I might have to get a couple...one for best.

Have a great Christmas everyone and may you stockings be full of lead...and plastic men.

Company L, 7th Cavalry.

I've had to make a few tweaks to this company, mainly shopping out the spare officer to use in a different unit. Counting through my undercoated figures, I realised there were no more officers left, with company E still to do, this was going to be a problem.

Young Jed O'Neil came to the rescue and took the place the spare Lieutenant.

Now Calhoun rides with his full company of troopers towards his fateful hill.

The spare officer gets a bit of a tweak too. A canvas bullet belt is added to cover his civil war sash.

Update: Tom Custer's Company C trots into view. This is another nice unit to paint because they are mounted on light chestnut horses. It will make the company stand out amongst the others.
 

Foundry paint 'light chestnut' is the perfect colour for this, nice and easy.

Sorrel is the American name for chestnut.